1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a cooker for heating and cooking food items in a cooking liquid medium such as water or oil.
2. Description of the Related Art
In cooking apparatus such as fryer apparatus and noodle cookers for cooking food items in a cooking liquid medium, determination of the appropriate heating temperature is essential for desirable cooking of food items. For example, a fryer apparatus detects the temperature in cooking oil and controls combustion conditions of a combustor so as to maintain the oil temperature within a predetermined range. Such temperature control is generally implemented through ON/OFF control of the combustor. The combustor starts combustion when the detected oil temperature drops below a predetermined lower limit, and the combustor stops combustion when the detected oil temperature rises over a predetermined upper limit. In this manner, the temperature in cooking oil is maintained within a predetermined range.
Food items are placed into a cooking liquid medium, for example, cooking oil, which is previously heated and maintained in a predetermined temperature range. In a conventional cooker like fryer apparatus, when food items are placed into the cooking oil under the combustion OFF conditions, the fryer apparatus can not resume combustion immediately, but there is a certain time delay before restart of combustion. The time lag is generally attributed to the temperature sensor which detects the drop in oil temperature below a predetermined value after some delay due to the uneven temperature distribution in cooking oil and convection of the oil in a frypot. The conventional system resumes combustion after the temperature in cooking oil around the cold food items falls undesirably, which may cause underdoing or overdoing of food items.